"According To Tradition..."
I heard it on the news the other morning while listening to the radio. We were
being informed that the Pope would be visiting Mount Nebo, "the place where,
according to tradition, Moses viewed the Promised Land." I must admit that I was
very irritated when I heard it, and my anger had nothing to do with what was
said about the Pope (not this time!).
It was that subtle phrase that the announcer slipped in, "according to tradition
. . ." I got to thinking, "I wonder if I could get on the radio and announce,
‘According to tradition this country’s first president was named George
Washington.’ Or maybe I could declare that ‘according to tradition, Neil
Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.’"
I might not have been so incensed had it been an isolated case. Unfortunately it
was announced on the same radio station a few weeks earlier that Mount Sinai
"was the place where tradition has it that Moses received the Ten Commandments."
"How crafty is our adversary," I thought to myself (Jn. 8:44). There was no
blatant statement that the Bible is a hoax or something equally defiant of God.
Just a quiet, unobtrusive remark which referred to an historic account as merely
a tradition. The insinuation of course is that the Bible record is tantamount to
a fairy tale or a myth. The cunning strategy behind those godless men who
control the media is to lower the Bible account to the level of any dubious
belief that all cultures and peoples have. Satan wouldn’t mind if you and I came
away thinking that the Bible account of Moses on Mount Nebo was no more real
than the Bigfoot monster or the superstitions of some African tribe.
Once the Devil gets us accustomed to the word "tradition" in connection with
references to the Bible, then it will be just a short hop over his next
objective. According to modern thought, we should be tolerant of all cultural
traditions and treat them with equal importance. Soon we will begin to believe
that the Bible "tradition" is just as valid as the tradition presented in the
Koran or the traditions of Buddhist philosophy.
I doubt that this one statement which I heard on a news broadcast is going to be
solely responsible for the apostasy of some child of God. It is the steady
erosion of our faith, like the constant dripping of water on a rock, that
concerns me.
We write these things in the spirit of Paul who said, "that no advantage may be
gained over us by Satan: for we are not ignorant of his devices" (2 Cor. 2:11).
Let us take advantage of these opportunities to point out to our children and
our youth the fallacy of such statements. May none of us, while having our guard
up against immorality and false doctrine, be brought down by a fiery dart of the
Devil piercing from behind.
By Mark Reeves
The
Front Page - Guest Editorial
From Expository Files 7.5; May 2000
